The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for decreasing the volume of paper after it has been through an image transferring process.
Books and other bound paper items are a substantial part of many businesses, homes and institutions of learning. These printed materials are generally formed of multiple sheets or layers of paper. Although each sheet may not have a great individual thickness, the cumulative total of these pages requires significant linear shelf space.
Many facilities for retaining these publications have a fixed storage volume. Thus, many materials are either sent off site or destroyed. The destruction of materials presents numerous negative implications. However, even off site storage requires cataloging transport and maintenance of the materials, thereby adding to the overall cost.
While publishers of books and other bound paper items recognize the shelf space problem, the publishers are limited to the thickness of paper they can employ. Most printing devices require the paper to have a minimum thickness, resistance to curl and other parameters that permit rapid processing of the paper. Therefore, the paper must have a certain thickness to print and the resulting publication has a corresponding thickness. This results in increased shelf space requirements of the publications. In addition, binding costs go up when the volume of material to be bound goes up.
One solution to this problem is to use thinner paper. However, thinner paper often jams in copiers and other image transfer machines.
In the 1970s, the Xerox Corporation introduced a paper known as micro-spheres that was made up of paper or plastic miniature spheres for the purpose of reducing the overall weight of the paper for reduction in mailing costs. This paper had the normal thickness of copier paper and worked well in copiers and printers without jamming, and further had the benefit of reduced mailing costs by virtue of its light weight. This paper is no longer used or manufactured today, but the technology exists for making it.
Therefore, the need exists for a method of forming an imaged paper, wherein the imaged paper has a reduced thickness.
The present invention relates to a method of increasing the density and decreasing the thickness of a substrate after it acquires an image. The image may be acquired by any of a variety of mechanisms such as a printer. The imaged substrate is then subjected to a sufficient compressive force to decrease the thickness of the substrate without altering the image.
The present invention also includes two specific embodiments of apparatuses to accomplish this compression. One embodiment is an comprises a pressure roller for contacting the imaged substrate. Alternatively, a stack of imaged substrates may be subjected to the compressive force.